Plastic DebrisAlong the Georgia Coast
A variety of plastics and other debris are found on coastal beaches
and marshes. For example, in one year, volunteers picked up
90,000 kg (200,000 lb) of plastic debris along 160.93 km (100 mi) of
Georgia beaches through the Georgia Beach Sweep program. Bottles,
styrofoam cups and floats, plastic utensils and nylon fishing lines are
some of the plastics collected during beach surveys. Besides being
unsightly, plastic debris can harm marine animals, including coral,
turtles and seabirds.
While plastics are resistant to degradation, they eventually break
into small
particles, now
found in most
of the world’s
oceans. What
is the origin
of all this
plastic debris?
Sources
include cargo
ships, boaters,
fishermen and
picnickers,
as well as plastics originating inland but carried by coastal rivers into
the ocean. Thus, the debris comes both from the land and the ocean
with the majority arriving from the land. Volunteers from Rivers Alive
once collected 333,844 kg (368 tons) of debris (much of it plastics)
along 3540.6 km (2,200 mi) of Georgia inland waters. A significant
amount of this inland debris is carried into the ocean and eventually
deposited on our beaches and marshes. Surveys of Georgia’s barrier
island beaches have found heavy accumulations of plastics on Tybee,
Wassaw, Ossabaw and Cumberland Islands. Besides beaches, plastic
also accumulates in the coastal estuaries.
Students, working with the University of Georgia Marine Extension
Service on Skidaway Island near Savannah, have have collected data
on Wassaw Island’s monthly accumulation rate, discovering a range of
160 to 1300 grams (5.64 to 45.86 oz) of plastic debris per month along
the sampling transect (40 m x 200 m or 132.23 ft x 656.17 ft).
A growing concernfor us all.
-81.5° -81°
31°
31.5°
32° 1
23
45
678
910
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 = 2
= 50
= 2000
Site No. - Location name
1 - Tybee Island 2 - Petit Chou Island 3 - Little Tybee Island 4 - Lazaretto Creek 5 - Cockspur Island 6 - Long Island 7 - Upper Wilmington Island 8 - Hayners Creek 9 - Groves Creek10 - Priests Landing11 - Turner’s Creek12 - Pigeon Island13 - Wassaw Island14 - Rose Dhu Island15 - Racoon Key16 - Ossabaw Island17 - Fort Morris/Sunbury18 - Blackbeard Island19 - Sapelo Island20 - Cumberland Island
Accumulation ratekg/year of plastics
- - - - --
- - - -
Local annual accumulation rates in kg per year (pounds per year): Tybee Island - 2404.394 kg (5300 lbs); Wassaw Island - 91.625 kg (202 lbs); and Ossabaw Island - 16.783 kg (37 lbs). Figure from “Evaluating plastics abundance and degradation within coastal Georgia marshes,” Drs. Jay Brandes and Richard Lee, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.
To learn more about our marine debris programs, call the UGA Marine Extension Service at
(912) 598-2496 or visit our website at
www.uga.edu/marex
The University of Georgia® Marine Extension Service
This work was supported by NOAA’s Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative.
Plastic DebrisAlong the Georgia Coast
Be part of the marine debris solution.
Response & Prevention
Who’s involved and how you can help.
Organizationsinvolved with debris cleanup
A number of organizations involve volunteers who regularly cleanup debris along Georgia’s coast. These include:
• University of Georgia Marine Extension Service• Georgia Sea Grant• Clean Coast• Ocean Conservancy• Rivers Alive• Tybee Beautification AssociationGovernment programs involved with the assessment of
debris along the coast include the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, University of Georgia Marine Extension Service and NOAA Marine Debris Division. Perhaps you and your family can join one of these organizations in the cleanup of debris on the beaches and marshes along the Georgia coast.
What you can doThere are many other activities that you and your family can
do to address this problem including:
• use of the Marine Debris Tracker mobile application (http://sea-mdi.engr.uga.edu/)
• do not litter plastics when you visit the coast
• talk with your friends about the plastic debris problem
• write letters to your legislators asking them to pass laws that encourage production of degradable plastics
• if there are insufficient trashbins at heavily visited coastal sites, bring it to the attention of local authorities
• reduce your waste at home- use reusable items- recycle everything possible